An interesting thing I didn't know until today

[Satchmo Distel]

SOS didn't make No. 1 but it is Pete Townsend's favourite record.

[Nocturnal Submission]

SOS didn't make No. 1 but it is Pete Townsend's favourite record.

It was a No. 1 in a few countries.

Edit - the article is here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-63574453 There's a bit about the Beetles which you might find interesting but probably already know.

The ABBA factoid doesn't specify No. 1-ness but, as I said, it did reach the top of the charts in a few places.

[WOM]

There's a bit about the Beetles which you might find interesting but probably already know.

He's into a similarly named band...

[Nocturnal Submission]

He's into a similarly named band...

Oh, no! And that was a pun that I only tumbled a few years ago and occasionally mention to others as an example of something that had passed me by for virtually my entire life!

[WOM]

Oh, don't sweat it. I wasn't holding you out to ridicule in front of your peers or anything.

When I was a kid, I remember be curious about all the Rolling Stone business. The magazine, the band, the Dylan song. It was like that phrase had a real heyday for some reason.

[Amor de Cosmos]

I guess you never got to Muddy Waters eh?

[WOM]

Damn it...

[1974ddr]

Some sources claim that it was awarded three unit sales for every triple album sold, which is why it sold more than Band On The Run. But I think it would still be in the top 3, the other being the Imagine LP. All Things Must Pass presumably sold more than Imagine when Lennon was alive because Lennon has I believe sold more solo records posthumously than he did in the 70s (when he was usually too leftfield for big sales).

Dipping back in, that seems plausible, although even at a 3:1 ratio I'd still have thought Imagine or Band On The Run would top the list.

[1974ddr]

Best solo Beatles album is McCartney II and I'll fight anyone who argues different

McCartney II? Seriously? I mean, it's OK in parts... I find most of Sir Paul's solo albums patchy, and have always maintained that it's a quality control issue. If he'd released half the albums, they'd have been twice as good.

[Amor de Cosmos]

Damn it...

Don't worry, the man himself was a little confused. Back in the day he was asked what he thought about The Rolling Stones choice of a name. "Oh it's fine" he replied "And I'd really like to thank them for naming their magazine after one of my songs."

[Satchmo Distel]

From our day in Roatan, Honduras:

Some caterpillars have around 4000 muscles, compared to 639 in humans.

Cappuccino is named after the Capuchin friars, who also inspired the name of the Capuchin monkeys in Central and South America.

Macaws mate for life.

There's a rodent called an agouti that looks like a capybara or guinea pig.

[Various Artist]

There's a rodent called an agouti that looks like a capybara or guinea pig.

Yes, and domestic agouti guinea-pigs (as opposed to white ones, tortoiseshell ones, etc.) are ones that have the same 'peppered' colouring as their rodent relatives and are hence named after them. (In each case, I believe it's because each of their hair shafts have two colours: the main part is one colour but the tip of the shaft is another, giving the coat a mottled, 'ticked' look.) Wild guinea-pigs also tend towards that colouration.

[Sits]

And a ferret is a domesticated polecat.

[Satchmo Distel]

Male and female macaws look identical, at least to humans. I'm not sure how the males compete for mates in that case (must be behavioural, not better plumage).

Flowers: Chinese lantern hibiscus are lovely; our guide called them chandelier hibiscus, which does not bring up confirmation on Google.

Butterfly wings that look like cats eyes never fail to be adorable.

[Sits]

Unlike Macaws, male and female Eclectus Parrots could hardly look more different.

[ad hoc]

I learned today that there was an apparently Roman coin bearing the image of "Emperor Sponsian" which was found in Romania in 1713, but which scholars had decided was a fake, and that Emperor Sponsian never existed. I learned that at the same time as also learning that the coin has now been shown to be real and that Sponsian did exist (though was not exactly an emperor)

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-env...df-DpL0xTMOFGk

[ursus arctos]

I read that yesterday and am curious as to what drove the original researchers to conclude that the coins were fakes.

It could just be that surviving written sources were accorded unjustified authority at the time, or there could be other factors involved.

[ad hoc]

My assumption would e that the historians in question came up against this Emperor who they'd never heard of and concluded that rather than trying to find an explanation, they stuck to their understanding of the time and concluded therefore they must be fake

[ursus arctos]

I think that may be giving them too much credit, as even at the time the understanding of the period was that central authority had completely broken down and local/regional warlords had taken advantage of the opportunity thus created.

[ad hoc]

More in depth story here

https://twitter.com/history1st/status/1595494195803865088?t=qY8cgNQYhmPcqqwb1GZEdw&s=19

[Nocturnal Submission]

My energy supplier has just informed me that: "If the mass in a one-kilogram bag of sugar could be converted into energy, it would be enough to drive a car non-stop for 100,000 years."

I don't think I really understand what that means. Or if I do, I'm more than a little surprised.

Waits for Janik.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

It's pretty straightforward - just a back of the envelope calculation using Einstein's formula E=mc^2. In nuclear fission and fusion, when the total mass of atoms decreases, that is because the mass has been converted into energy. And the amount of energy is colossal in proportion to the mass, because c, the speed of light, is approximately 3*10^8 (300 million) metres per second, so each kg of mass is equivalent to around 9*10^16 (90 thousand million million) joules of energy.

It's why nuclear fuel produces so much energy, and why nuclear weapons make such apocalyptic explosions, even though only a tiny proportion of their mass is destroyed in the nuclear processes that they undergo in, respectively "burning" and exploding.

[Sam]

There's a rodent called an agouti that looks like a capybara or guinea pig.

They do look a bit like capybaras, albeit a hell of a lot smaller.

This reminds me that when we were down in the south west of Buenos Aires province a couple of weeks ago we drove somewhere one day and passed signs on the road warning that capybaras might be crossing. I found this particularly interesting because the Wikipedia page for the capybara doesn't include the area we were in in their native range (the southern end of which is just a tiny bit south of the City of Buenos Aires; although still in the same province we were about 500 km away!), but the guide on our trek the following day told us that a few years ago there were so many of them around they were considered pests.

[lambers]

there were so many of them around they were considered pests.

That would make an interesting alternative episode of Tom & Jerry.

[Janik]

My energy supplier has just informed me that: "If the mass in a one-kilogram bag of sugar could be converted into energy, it would be enough to drive a car non-stop for 100,000 years."

I don't think I really understand what that means. Or if I do, I'm more than a little surprised.

Waits for Janik.

What EEG said, with the additional note that the stipulation of ‘sugar’ is unnecessary. That is the case for a 1kg mass of anything. The thing is, you can’t convert mass into energy for most objects in any sort of efficient way - so the ‘if’ at the start of that sentence is doing an awful lot of heavy lifting.